


See Me, See You (In Your Eyes)

by Sapphire09



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe
Genre: Soulmate AU, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 21:04:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10049222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphire09/pseuds/Sapphire09
Summary: So, what if no one in the world have the same shade of eye color? While brown is still a common color, there are different shades of browns, blues and other colors. Genetics may be in play for determining the base between brown, blue, green and so on, but the shade differs in each person.One thing everyone have in common is they all have flecks in their eyes, colored in their soulmate’s eyes. Could be little flecks, a thin ring around their iris or straight up hetero-chromia, where their right or left eye is the color of their soulmate’s eye.But, for Clark Kent, a soulmate might as well be a pipe dream.





	1. Prologue

The boy looked carefully at the reflection of his eyes, the unmarked brown color staring back at him. His eyebrows furrowed as he concentrated on looking even closer, leaning towards the mirror to see better.

“Do you think they will have green eyes, Mother? Or, will they have brown eyes too, like mine? How can I see the difference?” the boy asked as he leaned even closer to the full-standing mirror. A woman appeared from behind him, smiling as she reached the boy’s shoulders, bending down so her face appeared beside her son’s in the mirror. Her emerald eyes glinted in joy as looked at her son’s reflection, lips curved in an amused smile.

“Darling, whatever color their eyes will be, they’ll be lucky to have you as their soulmate,” his mother said, eyes and lips full of mirth as her reflection stared back at her son

“Yes, of course! But, what if they have brown eyes, too? Then how will I know who they are?” the boy exclaimed worriedly. Still with a mirthful smile, his mother was about to open her mouth to answer her son’s worry before a man appeared by the door.

“So here you both are. I thought we have a show to get to?” the tone was chiding, but the man’s expression was joyful. The woman turned to face her husband, sending him an even more elated smile.

“Thomas! Have you been looking for us?” the woman stood up as her husband came into the room, giving chaste kiss on the man’s lips. The boy just glanced towards the man, smiling before taking a disgusted expression and turning away when he saw their lips meeting. The man simply laughed when he noticed his son’s expression, coming closer the boy’s side together with the woman.

“Well, perhaps saying Alfred has been looking was more apt,” the man said with humor in his tone. “Now, why are you both still in front of the mirror? Both of you already look quite fetching. Especially you, Martha.”

The woman giggled sweetly at her husband’s compliment and gestured towards their son, who seemed intent on his reflection.

“Bruce was worried about his soulmate mark. He’s worried that he wouldn’t be able to discern the shade if his soulmate also has brown eyes.”

Thomas raised a curious eyebrow. “Now, what brought this on? I thought I just told you yesterday no one in the world has the same shade, Bruce.”

Bruce glowered at his reflection, though when he noticed he looked more like pouting, he sighed heavily and turned to his parents behind him.

“Because, Mr. Elliot said not everyone can see every shade in the world, so some people will see similar shade as the same shade. What if my soulmate has brown eyes in similar shade to mine, and I can’t tell the difference? What if I can’t _see_ the shades?”

Thomas shared a glance with his wife, who smiled and shrugged, before he went on one knee so he would be level with his son.

“Everyone has a soulmate, Bruce. And, does it matter if your soulmate has similar shade as yours? You’ll just have to look for someone who has your color.”

Bruce shook his head vehemently. “But, what if I mistook someone _else_ with brown eyes as my soulmate because I can’t notice the shade? Then, what if my soulmate found _me_ and I was with someone else and my soulmate left and we end up like _The Little Mermaid_? I hate _Little Mermaid_! The prince was stupid for not noticing her! I don’t want to be like the Prince!”

Martha was trying to contain herself at her son’s adorable little rant, while Thomas looked like he was trying to find proper words, because past experiences have suggested that laughing will only make Bruce gave him The Silent Treatment for weeks, and Thomas would be miserable in those weeks.

“Bruce,” Thomas tried, “Why don’t we wait until after your color appears? Who knows, maybe they’ll have a very distinctive color and you’ll know what shade it’ll be. Maybe, they’ll have really distinctive blue eyes, like the sky in spring or the blue flowers your mother has in the garden and you’ll know at once. If not, you’ll still have us and Alfred to help you tell what shade it’ll be. What do you think?”

Bruce looked at his father, whose oak-brown eyes were ringed with mother’s emerald green on his left eye, then at his mother, whose right eye was half-colored in his father’s shade of honey-brown, before he accepted the answer and nodded.

Thomas grinned and straightened up, holding his son’s hand as the three of them exited the room. “Great! Now, come on, Alfred must be tired of waiting for us. We don’t want to miss the show tonight, do we?”

“Zorro!” Bruce laughed as his mother grasped his other hand. Alfred was waiting for them by the front door, expression flat as usual while holding to their coats.

“Alfred, sorry for the wait,” Thomas said as he accepted his coat from the butler’s hands.

“No worries, Master Wayne. Though, I do find myself curious as to why all of you have taken so long to cross the hallway,” Alfred answered as he gave the rest of the coats to Martha and helped Bruce into his own.

“Bruce was worried about his soulmate and had quite a dislike for the Prince in _The Little Mermaid_ ,” Martha mirthfully said. Alfred raised an eyebrow at the young master, who seemed to blush at the scrutiny.

“Well, Princes are stupid,” Bruce muttered out as he closed up his coat. “They’re ridiculous and stupid and blind. The knights were cooler.”

Alfred’s eyebrow only rose a bit higher. “Well, I do hope to hear more about this later. I do think you are a wee bit too young to worry about soulmate just yet, Master Bruce.”

Face slightly pink, Bruce merely tuned his head away at the butler’s teasing, before walking ahead towards their car. Martha simply giggled while Thomas smiled dotingly at their son.

“Well, we leave the house to you, Alfred. We’ll see you later tonight,” Thomas said as he went to the car.

“Shall I prepare desserts for when you return, Sir?”

Thomas grinned at the butler as Martha grasped his elbow.

“You’re the best, Alfred!”

* * *

 

Bruce stared at his brown eyes, unmarked and unblemished. He still couldn’t name yet the exact shade of his eyes, but his parents wouldn’t be there to help him. However, if he were to give his own words then he knew they looked like the mound of dirt his parents were buried in, the shade of the graveyard’s soil.

“Alfred,” he said to the butler standing behind him, his tone devoid of cheer that used to accompany the name. “Order one of those colored contacts for me. I’d like to wear them soon.”

Alfred didn’t say anything, but he looked disapproving. Bruce couldn’t care, not right now. Not when he still saw his parents’ graves when he simply looked at the shade of his own eyes.

He couldn’t imagine anyone would want to see the shade of grave dirt when they looked into his eyes anyway.


	2. Smallville

Ever since he learned the word for it, Clark had always been fascinated by the concept of soulmates. As a child, he used to imagine sharing his ice cream of the day or Ma’s pies with that person, thinking and wondering if that person would like this flavor or if that person would find that show entertaining. He would smile and giggle and imagine sharing all of his happiness with his soulmate.

He was always captivated by stories on how his parents got together, the perfect story out of a fairy tale where they found each other in one meeting. His mother, with light red-brown eyes in the shade of the bark of an oak tree, had met Jonathan Kent, whose eyes were the color of yellow-brown in the shade of wheat. They found each other in one eye contact, recognizing each other as soulmate and stayed together through their years loving each other. There were challenges in their way, but young Martha Clark and Jonathan Kent had stayed together through them all. Clark wanted to have a story like theirs, someday.

He always stared at his reflection in the mirror, waiting eagerly for that little speck of color to appear across in iris. (Maybe something brown, like Pa’s and Ma’s. Or, maybe green, like Pa’s field, like Lana’s eyes—)

But, when his powers manifested, he found out he wasn’t even of Earth.

His eyes had always been blue, almost like the shade of the sky (always almost, but never quite the same, and then he knew why). But as his various visions came, the colors subtly changed and he found out just how different he was. His eyes were the shade of blue that doesn’t exist anywhere on earth, with subtle glow of glittering stars that only added to his alien features.

For a while, he held on hope that maybe Fate still has a soulmate for him somewhere out there.

However, as time passed he buried his hope for a soulmate deep inside him. One by one, that speck of color appeared in his friends’ eyes. Some have that little dot of color, others ringed around one of their iris. Some fewer ones even had one of their eyes completely changed color into the color of their soulmate’s eyes. But both of his eyes kept their color, the blue that doesn’t exist. So, he began to think that if he even had a soulmate, they were most likely dead together with the planet he came from.

(But, there was that a little faith in his heart, that _maybe_ —)

He didn’t know if the changes he saw in his eyes’ appearance were due to his enhanced vision or if they shifted along with his powers, due to the yellow sun. He couldn’t know.

(But, they _did_ change, didn’t they? Then, which color he should look in his soulmate’s eyes? The unearthly blue, or the _almost_ sky he had remembered? Or, had they been always the same?)

He was resigned, but still there was a little bit of hope that once he has perfect control of his abilities, one day maybe his color would return (still, it wouldn't be _normal_ , would it?). One day, he can still see another speck of color in his eyes. Even if he may never meet them, even if it’ll be another alien color, _he hoped_.

(He had perfect control of his powers, yet his almost-sky eyes never returned. Always that unearthly blue, inhuman and alien, different and – _I don’t want to be different_ —)

The unearthly blue was unsettling, the shade indescribable, and thus just another mark on how alien he is. Even in a world where having different eye color was the norm, he would be the only freak with alien-colored eyes.

He hid the unearthly color with the red subtle hue of his heat vision, turning the alien color into murky purplish-blue. Compared to his unnatural blue, the shade of almost-skyflower his eyes had taken was much earthlier. At least, as close to earth-like he could hope to manage, without spending ridiculous amount of money for the special contact lenses he had once seen on TV.

(His parents tried buying it for him once, but they melted off once his heat vision heated his cornea, even when his eyes barely turned red. It was a waste of money that his parents couldn’t afford for a second time, so he never asked again)

In the beginning, it was trying. Keeping the hue as it was without glowing (more that it did usually, the glittering stars unnoticed by human eyes under the bright of the sun) and releasing the heat, without harming anyone or anything he saw, needed the kind of constant focus that he had to train for himself. Over time, it became a second nature to him, to activate the heat vision just for the sake of gaining that reddish hue the moment he wakes. Every moment of every day, when he looked at a mirror, the almost-skyflower color greeted him.

He didn’t see the unnatural blue for a very long time. Even when his father died, when he started roaming the world, not once he ever tried to see the true color of his eyes. He didn’t see the point.

But, sometimes when he was alone, in a room where no one knew who he was, he wondered. That little bit of hope in him was pushed back since a long time ago, but it was always in the back of his mind. The what if, _what if—_

So, one day he looked at a mirror and let his true color emerge.

The brown speck that greeted him shocked him into speechlessness.

He couldn’t care how ridiculous he looked, with jaw hanging wide and eyes rounded up. His hands _almost_ cracked the mirror when he accidently used super-speed to get closer, his nose and cheeks smushed against the surface and _almost_ cracked that spot too. But he really couldn’t care, not when there’s _a speck of brown_ in his left iris.

The shade was one he couldn’t yet give word to, not when he was too overwhelmed by the _fleck in his eye, oh god he had a fleck in his left eye!_ But, at first glance, Clark likened it to the tilled soil of Pa’s farm, the brown dirt beneath the scorching sun. Another thought that appeared was also of Pa’s mound of grave, but still—

It was _almost home_.

Without moving away from the mirror, Clark moved one hand from the cracked surface to trail a finger under his left eye. Clark didn’t know how long he was there; face pressed ridiculously to the mirror surface, mouth still hanging open as he admired the little brown dot just beneath his pupil, stark against the alien blue of his eyes.

(Later, the image of Jor-El would tell him of another possibility, that it was simply the result of using the red hue of laser vision constantly, a side effect of him hiding his eyes for so long. But, Jor-El also didn’t know if it truly wasn’t his soul-mark. After all, he was the one and only, the last of his kind. Kryptonians didn’t look for mates through their soulmark, but it didn’t mean Kal-El couldn’t have developed a soulmark due to the yellow sun, adapting even further into life on Earth. No one could know for sure, so he dared to _dream_.)

He traced a line underneath his lower eyelid, in awe of the _dark, lustrous brown_ in his right iris, the very _human_ shade against the backdrop of his _alien_ _blue_.

For the first time in a long while, he thought that maybe, _maybe_ , he didn’t have to be as alone as he thought.

(He cried for that sliver of hope, the thought of not being _alone)_

After, Clark still hid his alien eyes, but knowing the brown fleck was there made him smile every day. The red hue turned that brown speck into a more reddish brown, though Clark didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed that little change much earlier. He thought that maybe it was because he didn’t look, and didn’t want to look. Now, that little dot, either in its reddish brown or the dark brown was all he saw when he looked at a mirror. When he felt lost, or in his darker moments, all he had to do was see that little dot and his heart would be a little bit lighter.

Still, sometimes he’d wake up and simply admired that fleck in the mirror in its true color. He found words and words for that little brown fleck that seemed to fit the shade. He imagined the person with such warm shade to be passionate, perhaps even energetic with fiery personality. _The harvested soil beneath the autumn sun_. He imagined them to be warm and patient, _accepting_.

_Home._

(Millions of people, millions of shades, millions of possibility. One of the brown-eyed people out there _must_ have the shade of _his home_.)

When he fell for Lois, he imagined the brown of his eyes fit hers, and the blue in her fits his almost-sky long ago.

(Later, he would notice how her brown was just a shade lighter than the speck in his eyes and how the blue in her has a shade of grey, more the color of winter sky. How there was no _almost_ in her shades. But, still he imagined.)

Lois was one of the rare people who weren’t swayed by soulmates, and she liked Clark. She knew Superman. She knew every sides of him, beautiful in her passion for Journalism. Her eyes were striking when they burned, when she chased for her story, no matter the consequences.

(He loved her, he did, but after _years_ of wanting for a soulmate, he couldn’t help but wishing their colors fit. But, _he loved her_.)

And then—

_Then—_

He wasn’t the last, after all.

Zod came, and with him, _destruction_.

In the wake of Metropolis’ devastation, he didn’t dare to dream anymore. As more and more spoke against him, blaming him for the lives lost, destroyed _homes_ , he figured his soulmate wouldn’t want him anyway. What he lost that day wasn’t only his last connection to Krypton, to his blood family, but also his hope for his _soulmate_.

(In the end, the speck in his eye might as well just be that, _a speck_. No human could ever be the soulmate of an alien _like him_ )

Lois was enough.

 _(Lois was his world_ )

 _(Yet, still he found himself staring at that_ brown _in his loneliest nights)_

* * *

Once the man stepped out of the car, the photographers around him went wild. There were flashes of cameras, everyone shouting for the man to look their way, for a moment of his time. Clark watched, almost overwhelmed by how the rest of the press suddenly come to life as that man walked into the building.

“Who’s that?”

The photographer he asked looked at him weirdly, incredulous that he didn’t know who the man was. As if he questioned Clark’s integrity as one of the press.

“You must be new to let them eat cake beat. That is Bruce Wayne.”

_Bruce Wayne._

There was a sense of curiosity due to the familiarity of the name. His eyes couldn’t help but follow the tall form of Bruce Wayne as he disappeared into the building. There was a moment when the flash went off and shined on Bruce’s eyes. Clark noticed the sheen on them, one that Clark recognized when someone was wearing colored contact lenses. He wondered why a man like Bruce Wayne would hide his soulmark.

He wondered what kind of man Bruce Wayne was.

* * *

_Bruce Wayne is an ass._

(But, there was a second when Bruce Wayne walked away and he followed that he thought the man has a _nice ass_.)

Bruce Wayne was also one suspicious asshole, especially with the secret conversation and instructions in the man’s ears. Though, Clark believed it was nothing more than corporate espionage, so when the news came on and he heard so many people asking for help, following Bruce Wayne was no longer important.

And then, later it turned into _Bruce Wayne is Batman._

Then, there was Luthor and his threat, and  _Batman is trying to kill him._  There’s also an irritated  _Batman is not listening!_

He tried and fought back, but Batman was merciless and fought even harder.

( _Why is this so hard? He's just a man!_ )

He was weakened, and _Batman is_ seriously _trying to kill him._ Then, another frustrated  _he needs to_ listen _!_

(He didn’t want to fight, not for Luthor, not when his mother—)

Then, finally, _Batman is listening_ , and his mother was saved.

But, of course it didn’t end there. Instead, there was another, a _monster_ , made from the body of Zod and the Kryptonian technology and Luthor’s depraved mind. There was _Doomsday_.

Then there was a woman with strength of a Goddess, a beautiful warrior with sky ( _heaven, spring, cloudless_ ) blue eyes and dark hair. With her, the three of them fought together.

_With them, he fought._

_(‘I’m not fighting alone this time')_

It didn’t even matter that Batman had tried to kill him just a few hours before. It didn’t matter that he had no idea who the woman was. Only now, unlike when he fought Zod, _he’s not fighting alone._

When he had to punch and shoot laser from his eyes and kept _the monster_ from destroying even more things and all he could think of was _protect_ and _save_ , there’s someone in his hearing processing and assessing and giving him direction. When he was tired and desperate and felt like nothing he was doing was working, there’s someone punching and slashing and bashing _the monster_ with him. Helping him. _Helping them._

When the Kryptonite Spear came into play, it was almost like fate how things played out.

( _If Batman hadn’t tried to kill him, Doomsday would’ve won. If they hadn’t been in the same place, more destruction would’ve been brought. If—)_

The decision of bringing the spear himself felt even more right than when he had to end Zod.

(' _It has to be me')_

Seeing Lois again for the last time made him realize again that _ah, I love her_ , and how it wasn’t fair for her, to be his whole world, when she has a whole other world to be _a_ _live in_. It wasn’t fair, how he kept comparing the color of her eyes to the brown no one else knew existed in his eyes. There was a little bit of regret too, for not realizing it sooner, for not seeing it sooner, that _he never had to save the world on his own._

 _(See, Clark? Batman had existed long before you were Superman. Yet, even after roaming the world, why only now you’ve known him? And, the Goddess that fought by your side, how long has she lived, how long had she existed? If there were others like them, even if there’ll be no other like you, you’ve never been alone, if only you had_ reached out—)

He closed his eyes, the pain fading out, and his last thought after _I love her_ was one of absent curiosity, a stray thought from when he had first seen the man—

_‘What was the color of Bruce’s eyes?’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is my first foray into the world of soulmate au. I usually write dark things and depressing and sad things, rarely romance things, so I'm not quite sure how I'm doing with this. I apologize for all the mistake I'm pretty sure is littering my story, but hopefully they're still readable? The next part is (probably) Bruce's POV. (And, like most superbat post-bvs fanfics, Clark's resurrection)
> 
> Also, two first chapters in one day! Don't expect this is going to be how I regularly update, though lol.

**Author's Note:**

> Expanded from this idea here: http://valeriacreativecenter.tumblr.com/post/150014030640/fanfic-idea-soulmate-au


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